The Heart Of The Game

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All Rise...

Yet another movie reminds Judge Brendan Babish how lame his own high school experience was.

The Charge

It's your life. Make every shot count.

Opening Statement

Following Hoop Dreams and the
Through the Fire, two documentaries profiling male high school basketball
players, comes writer/director Ward Serrill's The Heart of the Game.
The Heart of the Game documents six years of girls basketball at
Seattle's Roosevelt High, and focuses largely on Darnellia Russell, the team's
star player.

Facts of the Case

Initially, Ward Serrill had only intended to produce a modest film
documenting a single season. That year the girls' basketball team had a talented
roster and a new, eccentric head coach, Bill Rester. Indeed, it was a successful
year, but Serrill still didn't feel he had enough material for a full-length
documentary. His decision to continue chronicling the girls paid off the
following year when incoming freshman Darnellia Russell joined the team.

The majority of the film is dedicated to Russell's tumultuous five-year high
school career. There are several highlights on the court, but Russell's
off-the-court problems nearly sidetrack her academic and athletic
aspirations.

The Evidence

First, a full disclaimer: I have never been particularly enamored with
basketball. To me, the game seems repetitive and puts too much of a premium on a
single physical attribute (height). Professionally, the leagues are full of
pituitary cases who often make tens of millions of dollars for warming up a spot
on the bench. And that's not an exaggeration. As a man who comes up a few inches
short of six feet, I prefer more height-equitable sports such as soccer or
baseball.

I note this because The Heart of the Game reminded me of both how
much I dislike men's professional basketball and also what a great sport it can
be. Actually, to be more accurate, The Heart of the Game shows how great
sports can be. Certainly the young girls of Roosevelt High are not world-class
athletes; they're not the best basketball players in their country, their state,
or even, some years, in their own city. But they are good; they work hard,
they're passionate, and they exhibit a camaraderie you just don't see in
professional sports.

The film begins with a brief profile of Bill Restler. Though he teaches tax
law at the University of Washington, he's still somehow able to put in thousands
of hours with the girls' team (and the position only pays $4,000 annually).
Throughout the movie Restler acts as both mentor and comic relief for the young
ladies. One season he speaks exhaustively about wolves in an attempt to instill
the killer instinct in his team. The next year he motivates them with talks on
tropical storms. It's all very silly, but Restler is also adept in serious
situations. When one of his girls misses a shot at the end of a crucial game,
she collapses on the floor and begins sobbing uncontrollably. Amongst the
pandemonium Restler rushes over, lies beside her and whispers condolences into
her ear.

Despite his continual presence, Restler is not the star of the film;
Darnellia Russell is the one you're going to remember. Russell comes from a
low-income, single-parent family and leaves behind nearly all her friends to
attend the mostly-white Roosevelt High across town. Initially her grades suffer,
and several times she considers quitting the team. However, Restler pushes her
and by her junior year Russell's grades are up, she's besieged with recruiting
material from Division I schools, and the team seems primed to take the state
championship. I won't divulge what happens to Darnellia, or her team, but
suffice it to say Serrill would have had difficulty constructing a more
captivating storyline even if he had omniscient powers.

The problem with sports movies tends to be their predictability. Though the
athlete(s) work hard, they will eventually be overmatched, yet somehow make it
to the championship game. Usually they win, through they occasionally lose, but
they always become better people through the experience. This convention is so
entrenched that the movie Friday Night
Lights had the Permian High School football team lose in the state finals,
when they had actually lost in the semifinals.

Alternately, the great thing about sports documentaries is that anything can
happen. No one would ever green light a sports film where a plucky girls
basketball team works hard all season and makes it to the state tournament just
to lose in the first round to an inferior opponent. But that might happen here.
And this creates a level of suspense usually absent from dramatic films, and
definitely lacking in dramatic sports films.

The Heart of the Game is an emotional, inspirational, and
unpredictable movie that will entertain people of all ages and sexes. It doesn't
even matter if you don't like sports. This is not a film about athletics; it's a
film about the best of humanity. I know that sounds trite, but if you watch this
movie and aren't affected, then you're as cold blooded as Rick James. Or you're
the head of the WIAA (watch the movie, you'll get the reference).

As an added bonus, Miramax has put out a pretty fantastic DVD of the film.
Writer/director Sirrell provides a commentary track in which he discusses many
of the fascinating individuals who only appear briefly in the truncated
documentary. There are also updates on most of the key figures of the movie,
including footage of Restler and Russell promoting the film in Washington, D.C.,
New York, and Los Angeles. Though there are around a dozen deleted scenes
included, at one point Serrill mentions that the original running time of the
movie was four hours. This is such engaging cinema I would have gladly paid
extra for a second disc with this cut.

Closing Statement

I watched The Heart of the Game late at night, by myself, but was
still jumping off the couch and pumping my fist. I usually don't even do that
for live sporting events. This is one great movie.